The fires began at peak tourism season for Greece’s fourth largest island. skip past newsletter promotionĪuthorities have warned that the battle to contain the flames will take several days. Thanasis Virinis, a vice-mayor of Rhodes, told Mega television on Sunday: “We have between 4,000 and 5,000 people now accommodated at different structures.” He called for donations of essentials such as mattresses and bedclothes.įirefighters fought to extinguish a blaze that blackened the hillside and charred buildings near Lindos, one of the island’s most visited sites, which is famed for an acropolis perched on a large rock within medieval walls. Rhodes has long been a popular destination for British tourists. He said a help desk would be set up at Rhodes international airport by the Greek foreign ministry working in conjunction with diplomatic missions, including the British embassy, to help tourists who had lost travel documents. He had experience of hotel evacuations after a previous fire in Rhodes in 2008.Īrtopios said so far nine people had been admitted to health centres with respiratory problems, along with a pregnant woman and a man who had fallen while being evacuated from a hotel. Vietri and staff returned to the hotel on Sunday to try to get luggage to the evacuated customers. Tourists were evacuated on buses at about 3pm on Saturday, but there was no space on the vehicles for large items of luggage, which were left at the hotel. The wildfire came within 20 metres of the hotel, but on Sunday it had been fought back several kilometres. Pine trees burning in the wildfire in Rhodes on Saturday. It’s not about losing one or two weeks’ tourism it’s about the impact on people’s lives.” I hate to think what has happened – it is black, reduced to ash. The area was very beautiful, very green, with many animals. ![]() The situation is very saddening, not just because of the tourism aspect, but because the island has burned. He said: “Fortunately, no one here was hurt. Juri Viesi, a hotel manager in Lardos, had to evacuate about 400 people from his hotel, mainly Italian, Czech and French people. ![]() Tourists and some local people spent the night in gyms, school buildings, indoor stadiums and hotel conference centres on the island. Large groups of people gathered in the streets under a red and smoke-filled sky and waited to be taken to safety. Many had to leave their hotels when large flames reached the seaside villages of Kiotari, Gennadi, Pefki, Lindos, Lardos and Kalathos. “We really just took our identity cards, water and something to cover our faces and heads.” “We told the hotel about the messages we had received on our phones to evacuate the area, but they didn’t even know about it,” he told the public radio station RTBF.
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